This trick works best with wallpapers that have the image left or right-justified so that the login fields are not obstructed. Brighter colors also help since the login window dims them a bit.

You can use Photoshop or the likes to make the image blurred to give it that pure Yosemite feel. But some images work better than others. The Portal image below looks cool and is blurred, but the login fields are a little difficult to distinguish.

Getting Creative

I’m not a Photoshop pro, but you can use this template (1920×1080) which has a layer with the opacity reduced so you can line up where the login fields will go. You could use this to create your own wallpaper, or simply to line up where the login fields and buttons will appear on your wallpaper. Your results may vary depending on the resolution of your Mac.

Like this:

Related

77 Replies to “Customize The OS X Yosemite Login Screen”

Awesome tip and greatly appreciated. 🙂 May I add a note for those users who are new to the Apple ecosystem and OS X, that the Library folder they should look in is the root Library and not the user Library. You won’t find the file “com.apple.desktop.admin.png” in the user Library location. Best regards.

This looks awesome but I cannot get it to work. I got it once, but even then it was super blurry and had nowhere near the clarity of the pics above. Now trying with the R2D2 pic above and I cannot get it to work at all. Help! Am I missing something?

This is great! It should be noted that a file (image) with this name already exists in the folder (obviously since you already have a default background image on the login screen) – I simply renamed the original. Is this the best thing to do or could i just delete it. Basically all this is is a way to have different images for desktop background and login screen correct?

Correct, this trick allows a different image for the login screen than what your wallpaper is set to.

In my testing, the file can be removed without problem (this makes sense considering the file is in a cache folder, which means its existence is temporal). After a reboot, the login window defaulted to the original blurred Yosemite picture.

If you do not want it to be changed, you can run this command via Terminal:

1920 x 1080 just happened to be the resolution of the Mac I was testing things with, so that’s where I grabbed the screenshot of the loginwindow from. If I had other Macs with different resolutions to make another layer in the .PSD, I would have.

I’m running 10.10.2 and it works fine for me. I’m not sure where some people are running into issues as I only had two Macs to test this with. The only thing I can think is that is has something to do with the resolution. Every image that I tested seemed to work as you can see from the screen shots.

I don’t want to drag this out by having you repeat the instructions all over again. I followed these instructions to the letter. I also made certain that I was in the root Library and not the Users Library, which it seems you’re attempting to have me clarify again. The image below shows the file in the /Library/Caches folder explained in this tut, named appropriately.

My question was to those who actually got it to work. Was there something, above and beyond the instructions in this tutorial, that you did to get it to work?

I made changes to the colors to exaggerate the whole palette due to the transparency overlay, but it’s more than good enough. Might be some trick hiding to allow for removing that, but not sure if that’s worth the trouble…

Welp, I rebooted in safe mode. Then I rebooted again. Here’s the odd thing, it didn’t work, but what’s showing is a blurred version of my current desktop background… it’s odd, because that image isn’t in the Caches folder, nor in the Resources folder… so, it’s gotta be creating it somewhere…

If you cannot get it the image to appear and only get default Yosemite image check the Sharing & Permissions.

Steps:
1. Double click on the login photo you want to use
2. Click “Get Info”
3. Scroll down in that window to “Sharing & Permissions”
4. Make sure “everyone” has “Read Only” NOT “No Access” permissions

Hi….still having an issue: Correct path – Check; correct filename – Check, correct permissions – Check. However, as soon as I copy the “new” png in and overwrite the existing after about 2 seconds i can see the icon revert back to the old blurred Yos default image…same if I delete the default image…within 2 seconds another one is immediately populated back into the folder. Any thoughts?

This is fantastic… even easier than in Mavericks! I’ve been googling for a solution like this since the Yosemite beta was released. Is there any way to disable the white haze that Yosemite puts over the picture

hi, i read all the comments, and i verified my path and all the steps.
just to be sure, it allow to modify the screen after you closed your session.
Not the one after you start your computer, right.
because, i only got the picture after i close my session.

I, too, have this problem: when I start my computer, all I can see is a grey background (not a blurred version of my desktop image) with the login fields. Is there any way of customizing this lock (?) screen?